Sir David Wallace was Director of the Isaac Newton Institute and the second N.M. Rothschild & Sons Professor of Mathematical Sciences from 1 October 2006 until 2011. Sir David was also the Master of Churchill College, Cambridge.

Following undergraduate and postgraduate study in theoretical physics at the University of Edinburgh, David Wallace continued research at Princeton University as a Harkness Fellow. In 1972 he was appointed a lecturer in the Physics Department at the University of Southampton, and in 1979 he returned to the University of Edinburgh as Tait Professor of Mathematical Physics, and latterly Director of Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre. For twelve years from 1994 he was Vice-Chancellor of Loughborough University.

Sir David is also a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications. He has held a number of honorary positions, including Treasurer and Vice-President of the Royal Society, and President of the Institute of Physics. He has served as a member of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council, as an Expert to the European Commission, and as Chair of the UK e-Science Steering Committee and the Council for the Mathematical Sciences. His non-Executive Directorships have included the Scottish Life Assurance Company and Taylor and Francis Group PLC. He was awarded a CBE for services to parallel computing in 1996, and was knighted in 2004 for services to UK science, technology and engineering.